Traffic managers are software executed by network elements used to implement quality of service (QoS) in a network including managing performance of metrics such as bandwidth usage, latency, jitter, input rate, and output rate on a per connection or per subscriber basis. Traffic managers are used in an integrated service model characterized by resource reservations. For example, real-time application can set up paths and reserve resources along the path within the network providing QoS prior to transmitting data over the path. Resource reservation protocol (RSVP) is a signaling protocol for setting up paths and reserving resources along these paths in a network. Traffic managers can communicate using RSVP and similar protocols to implement QoS over the network.
Traffic managers also can implement differentiated service models where data packets are marked differently to create different packet classes. Data packets in different classes receive different quality of service treatment by the traffic managers in a network as they traverse the network. Traffic managers can work in a multi-protocol labels switching (MPLS) network where data packets are assigned labels at the ingress and subsequent classification, forwarding, and quality of service for the data packets are based on the labels.
Traffic managers manage QoS levels by classifying, marking, policing and shaping data packet traffic. Traffic managers are implemented in a flat non-pipelined, central scheduling approach. Traffic managers are required to scan the queues of the network element in which the traffic manager is executed to find those data packets that need processing